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There are different styles of Maori haka. The best known of all them is Ka Mate, which isn’t a war dance, weapons aren’t used and it is a free form haka where performers act and dance as they feel fit.
The Origins of Ka Mate
It is said that around 1820 the Ngati Toa chief, named Te Rauparaha, composed Ka Mate. The Maori people were wrapped up in a bloody inter-tribal war between the Ngati Toa and Waikato tribe. Once when Te Rauparaha was chased by his enemy, he came to chief Te Wharerangi asking for protection. Eventually, he agreed to help him and hid him in a kumara (sweet potato) pit with his wife sitting over the entrance. This strange act has interesting explanations. Firstly, no self-respecting warrior would dare to hide beneath the genitalia of a woman, but that really confused the enemy. Secondly, the female organs were believed to have a shielding effect.
As the pursuers arrived, Te Rauparaha muttered, “Ka Mate! Ka Mate!” (I die! I die!); when the enemy had gone, he murmured again, “Ka Ora! Ka Ora!” (I live! I live!); and continued, “Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru nana nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra! (“This is the hairy man who has fetched the sun and caused it to shine again!”).
Explanations of Ka Mate
The “hairy man” is considered to be the chief Te Wharerangi who protected and gave him a life. “Upane” literally means a “terrace” and refers to the steps. Each “Upane” or each step in the haka represents the steps Te Raparaha made from the pit to see if the coast was clear. At last, when he had came out of the dark kumara pit into the daylight, he said, “Whiti te ra! Hi! ” (“The Sun shines!”).
Six authors have written about kumara-pit chant, but not one of them has given a word-for-word translation. The most noticeable comment about it was written by John Te Herekiekie Grace. He gives the full text of a slightly different version of the chief’s haka, but no translation. He explains the first four lines as being an expression of relief by Te Rauparaha that the genital organs of the woman above him were neutralizing the incantations of his searchers. He explains the remaining lines as words that Te Rauparaha uttered to neutralize sexual advances the chief was making to his wife, advances that could have led to Te Rauparaha’s discovery. Yet the Maori text does not seem to fit this explanation, it is dubious that the chief would have been thinking about recreational sex when his pa was being searched by very annoyed kinsmen of Te Rauparaha’s victims. If Te Rauparaha had been found, everything would have been severe for the chief and his people.
Herewith, we have another version of Ka Mate origin according to which Ka Mate was an end-of-voyage chant also. Pacific Polynesian voyagers probing south from the warm tropics to Aotearoa had to handle with cold weather. “Whiti te ra – May the Sun shine on us” – was a common phrase. Chants used after ocean voyagers have similarities with Ka Mate.
Though, the story that Te Rauparaha composed Ka Mate while hiding in the kumara pit has become our society’s version of the universal myth that tells of the inevitability of the death of our society, and of its rebirth in a new form.
Ka Mate Today
Between 1998 and 2006, Ngati Toa tried to trademark Ka Mate to avoid its use by commercial organizations without their agreement. In 2006 the “Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand” claimed that Ka Mate had achieved wide recognition not only in New Zealand; New Zealand was representing abroad as a whole and not particular trader. Today Ka Mate is traditionally performed by All Blacks, as well as the Kiwis, which has definitely made New Zealand known for the whole world.